Welcome to Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. Nowadays, a conversation about spirits is looked upon in most of our western world with a high degree of suspicion. Five hundred years or so of materialistic, positivistic science has pretty much kicked the stuffing out of the philosophy that included spirituality in its precepts.
But some formidable literary and philosophical figures included the spirit world in their canon – including Shakespeare and Dickens. Some great artists even considered the purpose of arts to be a transcendental one, and included subjects like spirits and God in their everyday conversations.
It is mostly we moderns who now, in our smug self-assuredness, pooh-pooh the idea of spiritual influence as being old fashioned and passé, and dismiss any such views as superstitious and childlike.
But maybe these past geniuses had a better grasp on reality than we do. Maybe there is something from the vast pre-modern worldview that bears a further look, and could be brought back now to help us make sense of our complex and confusing modern world.
The Science of Spirits today on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head on the STOP Radio Network.